Balance control during walking : a two perspective exploratory study

An important goal of rehabilitation is to achieve dynamic balance (maintaining balance during walking). Although the exact mechanism underlying balance is unclear, there is evidence that foot placement is a key aspect for maintaining balance in the frontal plane. This strategy could potentially be altered in patients with balance difficulty. Therefore, our aim was to study if this strategy is indeed affected and if this strategy could be used for developing a clinical balance measure to distinguish between individuals with and without balance difficulty. Furthermore, we aimed to study balance from a biomechanical perspective. For this purpose a linear inverted pendulum (LIP) model was used to model regular walking.